Rare Book Monthly Articles - August - 2007 Issue

"You Can't Stop Us": Walking Down a Dark Internet Lane

by Renée Magriel Roberts A few weeks ago I was innocently searching for something or other on ABE, and quite by accident a doctoral dissertation by Renée Magriel Roberts called The Clock and the Rose: Time and Self--Transformation in the Romance of the Rose and the Divine Comedy turned up for sale. My doctoral dissertation that is. I was kind of surprised, since although we are publishers, we haven't gotten around to publishing my own work. Yet here it was, for sale on ABE, big as life. The seller goes by the name of "Discantus", gives his location as Majadahonda, Spain and give...

Have We Glimpsed the Future of Book Publishing?

By Michael Stillman The future of book publishing may be on display at the New York Public Library through the end of August. We say "may" because no one really knows what the future holds. Per...

Books and Information Go Their Separate Ways

By Bruce McKinney Books until recently have been the primary form for preserving and distributing information. They were typically inexpensive, compact and easily organized. Society, to ensur...

Bookseller Sentenced to 15 Months for Theft

By Michael Stillman A Philadelphia bookseller was sentenced to 15 months in prison on July 12 after pleading guilty to stealing 146 documents from the National Archives, where he worked part-ti...

Herschel V. Jones: Documented Obsession

By Bruce McKinney Serious collectors of the century past seemed to live on a scale rarely approached today. Collecting books was one of their pursuits although often not their only one. Colle...

AE Services Part 3: Current Price Estimator

By Michael Stillman This month we look at one of the Americana Exchange's most useful tools, its current price estimator. It updates values of prices in the 1.6 million-plus AE Database (AED) of ...

National Book Auctions: It's all in the name

By Bruce McKinney David Hall of CNY Book Auctions of Ithaca has announced that the firm, as part of a series of revisions, is changing its name to National Book Auctions. The firm was establis...

Deconstructing Twinkies: What's in those Things? - <i>A Book Review</i>

By Michael Stillman A recently released book -- Twinkie Deconstructed, by Steve Ettlinger -- will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about Twinkies, those iconic symbols of modern, pr...

An Auction in Indiana August 9th

By Bruce McKinney Once in a while an unusual and entirely unexpected auction occurs in the world of books, manuscripts and ephemera. Even more unusually it occurs off the beaten track. An auc...

<i>Bookends</i>: A Play About Two Booksellers

By Michael Stillman It's not often that booksellers become the subject of a theatrical play, and a musical no less, so the production of Bookends by the New Jersey Repertory Company deserves a ...

Thirteen Book Catalogues Reviewed in Section Two.

You will find thirteen new booksellers’ catalogues reviewed in Section Two this month. The American West is presented by Old West Books, while Old World printings are available from Samuel Gedge, L...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Winston Churchill. The Second World War. Set of First-Edition Volumes. 6,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: A.A. Milne, Ernest H. Shepard. A Collection of The Pooh Books. Set of First-Editions. 18,600 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Salvador Dalí, Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Finely Bound and Signed Limited Edition. 15,000 USD
    Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ian Fleming. Live and Let Die. First Edition. 9,500 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter Series. Finely Bound First Printing Set of Complete Series. 5,650 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ernest Hemingway. A Farewell to Arms. First Edition, First Printing. 4,200 USD
  • Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Isaac Newton on chemistry and matter, and alchemy, Autograph Manuscript, "A Key to Snyders," 3 pp, after 1674. $100,000 - $150,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Exceptionally rare first printing of Plato's Timaeus. Florence, 1484. $50,000 - $80,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: On the Philosophy of Self-Interest: Adam Smith's copy of Helvetius's De l'homme, Paris, 1773. $40,000 - $60,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: "Magical Calendar of Tycho Brahe" - very rare hermetic broadside. Engraved by Merian for De Bry. c.1618. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Author's presentation issue of Einstein's proof of Relativity, "Erklärung der Perihelbewegung des Merkur aus der allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie." 1915. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: First Latin edition of Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed. Paris, 1520. $20,000 - $30,000.
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: De Broglie manuscript on the nature of matter in quantum physics, 3 pp, 1954. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Tesla autograph letter signed on electricty and electromagnetic theory. 1894. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Heinrich Hertz scientific manuscript on his mentor Hermann Von Helmholtz, 1891. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: The greatest illustrated work in Alchemy: Micheal Maier's Atalanta Fugiens. Oppenheim, 1618. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Illustrated Alchemical manuscript, a Mysterium Magnum of the Rosicurcians, 18th-century. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Rare Largest Paper Presentation Copy of Newton's Principia, London, 1726. The third and most influential edition. $60,000 - $90,000
  • Doyle, May 1: Thomas Jefferson expresses fears of "a war of extermination" in Saint-Dominigue. $40,000 to $60,000.
    Doyle, May 1: An exceptional presentation copy of Fitzgerald's last book, in the first issue dust jacket. $25,000 to $35,000.
    Doyle, May 1: The rare first signed edition of Dorian Gray. $15,000 to $25,000.
    Doyle, May 1: The Prayer Book of Jehan Bernachier. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Doyle, May 1: Van Dyck's Icones Principum Virorum Doctorum. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Doyle, May 1: The magnificent Cranach Hamlet in the deluxe binding by Dõrfner. $7,000 to $10,000.
    Doyle, May 1: A remarkable unpublished manuscript of a voyage to South America in 1759-1764. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Doyle, May 1: Bouchette's monumental and rare wall map of Lower Canada. $12,000 to $18,000.
    Doyle, May 1: An rare original 1837 abolitionist woodblock. $8,000 to $12,000.
    Doyle, May 1: An important manuscript breviary in Middle Dutch. $15,000 to $25,000.
    Doyle, May 1: An extraordinary Old Testament manuscript, circa 1250. $20,000 to $30,000.

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